783: Up & Outwards - with Dr. Constance St. Germain, President, Capella University

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to EdUp on the EdUp Experience podcast, where we make education your business. Dr. Joe Sallustio back here on another one of probably 750 episodes we've done on the EdUp Experience at this point. If you have not checked out our website recently, you should. This episode obviously will come out a little while from now when we're recording it. But my colleague and co-founder of the EdUp Experience podcast, Elvin Freitas, has just returned from the World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, Qatar. He was recording for the EdUp Experience live on site. I couldn't go this year. Bit jealous that I couldn't go to Doha. There were 3,000 colleagues from across the world. He was able to talk to some very, very interesting people. So you know what? We do live stuff, too, you guys. You listen to this podcast, but you can find us on the road. 

By the time you listen to this, Will and I will have been at Middle States Commission for Higher Education in Philadelphia, where I will be visiting my good friend, Heather Perfetti, the president there and recording with great leaders that are with the Middle States Commission as members. And then I will be, and so will Will in this case, depending on if he decides to bring me along now that he's a podcast superstar in his own right. We will be going to Insights EDU, the Education Dynamics Conference on February 20th to 22nd in Phoenix, Arizona. I'll be doing a couple of panels there and probably messing up, but that's pretty typical for me at this point. We'll be at Ellucian Live in April, so on and so on and so on. So if you listen to the podcast, thank you. If you have picked up our book Commencement, the Beginning of a New Era of Higher Education, based on the insights of 125 presidents I interviewed on this podcast, please pick that up. And thank you if you have. And of course, catch us on the road.

Okay, now that I got all that out of the way, I'm a little out of practice, you guys, I'll be honest, haven't recorded in like two weeks. And I record typically every single day. So the fact that I took a break, it's like I forgot how to do this. So I'm going to be relying a lot on my guest co-host and a lot on my guest who has a lot to say, and then I'm just going to like stop talking. But that seems hard to do, because I can ramble on apparently. Anyway, let me bring in my guest co-host. He's here, he's ready. I may make fun of him a little bit. He may make fun of me a little bit. We'll see how it goes. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is. His name is Greg Clayton. He's the president of enrollment management services at Education Dynamics. Greg, what's going on?

Gregory Clayton: Hey, Joe, great to be here. Thanks for having us on today and looking forward to it.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Now, so far, are you regretting that Education Dynamics is bringing me to the conference? Or are you happy about it? Now you're seeing how much of a train wreck I am.

Gregory Clayton: We are super excited to have you at Insights.edu. It's going to be a lot of fun. There's going to be a lot of traffic where you are. And I think you're going to put on a wild fun show there.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Thank you, Greg. I'll pay you the 10 bucks later for saying that. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a great guest for you today. I did my really in-depth research. I go on a LinkedIn profile and see where people worked before I get them on the podcast. But she has a really interesting background, one that I have a lot of respect for. I'll tell you, well, you probably know why if you've ever listened to this podcast. Let me get her in right now. Ladies and gentlemen, her name is Dr. Constance St. Germain. She is president at Capella University. Constance, welcome to an EdUp microphone.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Thank you so much. I'm just thrilled to be here. I'm feeling a little bit like the thorn between the two roses, Joe, between you and Greg here.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: So yes, that could be. We're going to let you play that role. Yikes, yikes, yikes. No, seriously, I told you before we started recording, I couldn't even say my own name apparently. But as soon as I get on the microphone, all of a sudden stuff comes flying out. So we'll make something of this. You've got a lot to say, I think, and you're in really interesting spot in your career. And I'd like you to talk about your journey a little bit, but you've are just now recently the brand new president of Capella University. Of course, Richard, Dr. Richard Senese is the past president who we got to interview on this podcast. Great, great guy. How's it going?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: It's going absolutely amazing. You know, I am just so honored to really be trying to take over the reins from Dick Senese. He was a legend in his own right. And now being here and being able to carry on the mission and all the great work that he and I did together because I was the provost and worked directly for him has just really been a big honor and the institution's doing really, really well.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know, one of the first, I want you to talk about your background a little bit, but one of the first questions and I don't want to miss it is, so you're the provost. So you know the landscape, you know the people, you know the stuff, you've walked by a coffee stain here and there like, you know the ins and outs of the university and you step in as president, it's almost kind of like you have to fire yourself and rehire yourself in a new role, right? Because you can't go in with the same eyes you had in your previous role. How has that perspective change been for you? How do you manage that? How do you keep yourself fresh and not go in with the biases that you had before?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, no, I think that's a great question. You know, one of the things I said to Dick first when I took over, wow, I didn't realize your job was so hard when I stepped into this role. But the thing that's different is when you're a provost, you're looking in and downwards, right? So you're really focused internally on the institution, about what's going on with operations and everything else in the academic sphere. And when you're a president, it's really about looking up and outwards. So it's really about thinking about what's going on externally in the higher education landscape, looking around the corner to see what's next. And we are in such an exciting time right now in higher ed. I really think that we're going to see in the next three to five years some really robust changes that are already being accelerated as a result of the pandemic.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: What's interesting is you moved from faculty to administration. 

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yes, I went to the dark side. I went over to the dark side. Yes, that's true.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know, we'll see how good you'll be. You'll be fine. So just talk about your background a little bit because you've come from very large, very student-centric institutions all the way through your career. Really interesting. Can you talk about your journey?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Sure. I had a very nontraditional journey. I am not a traditional academic. I actually was a lawyer. I'm a reformed lawyer, I should say. I was in the military for almost a decade as a JAG officer, and then from there made the leap into higher ed as faculty member, as you said, and all the leadership skills that I was taught in the military really just gave me a knack for managing people and managing programs. And so I just worked my way up from faculty all the way up to dean, and then from there I went on to be an executive dean, which is like a general manager, and then a provost and now president. So I have been really lucky at being at these really large institutions. And I think part of the reason with that has to do with the fact that they're just so fun and agile, right? Working at a very large institution, you have the opportunity to make really large impacts given the student base at each of those. And so it has taught me a lot to get me ready for the position that I'm in today.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Amazing. Little known fact, the former president of University of Phoenix - he probably left right when you got there - Dr. Bill Pepicello. I know Bill. Bill's like a frequent guest co-host of mine. That would have been funny if he had been here today. Well, I thought about it. I asked Greg, and then I was like, I can't de-ask Greg. I'm not throwing any shade at Greg. I think Greg is awesome. He's doing a great job. And Bill really is horrible on the microphone. Bill, you know I love you. You're really great. He actually hosts his own podcast called EdUp Insights where he gives his take after his 40 years in higher ed and says all the things that all of us would like to say to all the people around us, but sometimes we can't say. So I send out episodes to people - go listen to this one, you know, it's good. So I'll tell him you said hi and it would have been funny if I did have him here. It actually would have been really funny. Greg and Greg, you are awesome. I love you too, man. So why don't you take over?

Gregory Clayton: Thank you, Joe. I'll tell you a little bit about my background and journey and everything. I've been in higher ed for 30 years, never in an institution, always on the ed tech service provider side of it. And I started my career after college. I was a December graduate and I was going up. I was so interested in becoming a lawyer. I wanted to go to law school and all of that. Constance, like kind of like your background. And the start was fall and I got a job in higher ed and in sales with the company. I just fell in love with it. And I decided to delay the law school thing. And then I started making some money and loving what I was doing.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You dodged a bullet. So you dodged a bullet basically, what you're saying by not going to law school.

Gregory Clayton: Do you know how many lawyers have told me that? That I dodged a bullet. I spent a lot of my time in my career at what was Thompson Learning, it's now Cengage Learning. And I came to Education Dynamics 10 years ago when we were, as a company, strategic priority was starting up a services division. And we started that up and really built something spectacular, we think, that we've got going on now and kind of become one of the higher ed markets largest unbundlers of marketing, enrollment management, research and consulting oriented services in higher ed. And I work with a great group of people. They're just fantastic people and just a pleasure to work here with all those people every day. And, you know, we work with the adult learner like Capella does, and that is what turns me on, you know, about coming to work every day. The people I work with and the work that we do and who we're serving with the adult learner population.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's awesome. Yeah, Constance, the adult learning population as we continue to evolve in higher education, I always say and I want to get your take on this, considering your extensive background, there are traditional institutions that are in stress or in stress mode, right? Declining enrollment, 18 year olds probably not going to school and the ones that are looking at different methods of doing so. The traditional school goes, you know what? We're going to go serve the adult student population. That's the way we save our institution moving forward. That's how we grow. We have to access this market. Then you try and go and do that and you see, well, it's just not that easy. You can't extend traditional based resources to a non-traditional population. You have to design for the non-traditional student. Can you talk about some of the differences that you've seen when you serve an adult student, some of the non-negotiables, things that have to be in place to properly serve the working learner, the adult student?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, absolutely. I think part of the issue, you've really brought up a really important point, is that a lot of these traditional institutions that were focused on the 18 to 24-year-old think, I can just take the pedagogy that we have and put it in online space. You just can't do that. Teaching in a course room face-to-face synchronously is completely different. Also, when you have an older student or learner, as we call them at Capella, you really have to look at how you are designing that learning experience and all of the supports that go around it. So it's not pedagogy, it's actually andragogy. And so you have to expect that the students that are coming to you already have a significant amount of life experience and probably work experience as well. 

And in addition, they also have a lot of demands on their time. Many of them are working full-time, right? They've got children they've got to deal with, whether they're in school, they've got extracurricular activities going on, right? So they need an environment that's really flexible. And that's one thing that Capella does really well in the fact that we're a competency-based education institution, that we offer two varieties of competency-based education. One is more in what we call a traditional asynchronous format. So we call that guided path. And then the other one is our direct assessment model, which is untethered from the traditional credit hour. And so really a learner can move as fast or as slow as they need based upon their proving their mastery at any given topic competency in that space. And so we call that model our FlexPath model. 

And you know, our learners who are in our FlexPath model are really looking to have that flexibility to apply the learning that they know, to take what they're doing in the course room. And they want to be able to apply it to their jobs immediately. It's not just theory. It's about real world application.

Gregory Clayton: Yeah, interesting. I was telling Joe when we started, we are admirers of the Capella website. We would classify it as highly student-centric. And when you look at it in the field that I'm in and the work that we do, you can tell when a website is really built for students and student-centric versus institution-centric where students have a very hard time finding the information that they need to help them make a decision when they're shopping. I'm curious about the FlexPath option that prospective students have and how it lines up with over a decade of research that we've done on the adult learner, particularly the online learner, undergrad and grad. 

And the three things that always pop up in that report that we release, and it's a primary research project that we do every year, we are going to release it at Insights EDU, Joe. So that'll be a big piece of news there. But the three things that always show up are affordability or cost, like how much is it going to cost and how fast can I get through it, and it kind of ties into flexibility and modality and everything. And then the ROI part of it and how the degree or the certificate or whatever path of pursuit is lining up with the prospective students' objectives, personal and professional. So I'm curious about FlexPath and is that what you guys see in terms of why you're offering it and offering it that way is to try to be completely flexible and meet the students where they are?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Absolutely. So here's what we know about FlexPath. All our research has shown that anybody, a student who's going through FlexPath, they are going to spend less overall. So that hits the affordability button. They're going to take out less financial aid. They are going to complete their degree faster than any of their traditional counterparts. And I think that is the biggest selling point for students who are looking at our website saying, great, I will spend less money, right? And I will be more likely to complete my degree and I will be more likely to finish it faster than if I went to a traditional institution because I can take all the knowledge that I have, right? I have immediate application and I can move as fast or as slow as I need to be in any given topic as I'm working my way through those courses. 

So I think that's really huge. And I think the other thing too is, we're one of the first institutions when we launched this back in 2013, we only offered it at the undergraduate level. But now we go all the way from undergraduate up to doctoral and we were one of the first institutions in the country to actually offer professional doctorates in a direct assessment model. So, and the fact that we're seeing now that FlexPath comprises almost 40% of our overall enrollment just speaks volumes as to how it's being accepted and how many prospective students are eager to get into that model.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: It almost kind of goes back to the whole army thing, right? In the military, we always talk about PLA and credit for prior learning. And I always go, the best example is a military medic who decides to go into an MA program and be a medical assistant or into a medical program and then you look back at this person who has either seen wartime or probably had better training than we can offer in most instances and say, you know what, that military medic training you had, actually doesn't apply over here. You did a blood draw for this soldier on the field in the middle of battle, but over here with this orange, you need to practice with this orange skin. Right, it's ridiculous. And you know, I get on a soapbox about that because institutions are really bad at PLA, where most are, right? Where it's really hard to look at this class because the faculty member in a lot of respects goes, I want them to take my class and our curriculum. And an adult student can become offended by that and go, what do you mean my time and money I spent over here isn't worth anything? I'll just go to Capella because they're going to recognize it. And how important is that to you at Capella as a leader, the provost and now president to say, we're going to give you credit for what you've done?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, most of the students that come to us, we call them career amplifiers because they're already established in their careers. They're looking to how do they take it to the next level. And so the way that we deliver on that is one of three ways. One, we deliver on it the way we design our curriculum, so the competency-based education. The second way we do that is around work-integrated learning. And we do that in three ways. One is around what you're talking about - credit for prior learning. So students can either bring, you know, their American Council of Education credits, right. Using the military is a great example there. So many of them take these courses, right, that are recognized by the American Council of Education, or they can put together a portfolio as well, right, and they can bring that and submit it to the institution and say, hey, can you review this portfolio I put together? I would like college credit for this, right? And so then the faculty work with them to take a look at that. 

So we're very open and accepting about those transfer credits and the credit for prior learning that they're already bringing to the institution. Because at the end of the day, it's about really what's doing in the best interest of the student at the institution. If that means accepting transfer credit, it means keeping affordability, you know, as key and making sure that they are learning key competencies that will make them successful in the workplace.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Are you kidding me? No, I'm not. For a third straight year, the EdUp Experience will be recording live at Ellucian Live 2024 this year in San Antonio, Texas, April 7th through the 10th. Illuminate, innovate and inspire. That's the framework for the conference. Leaders from institutions around the world will converge at Ellucian Live 2024 to discover game-changing technology, share industry insights, and build powerful connections. It's time to explore higher education's greatest opportunities with future-ready ideas, solutions, and best practices designed to drive transformation. You can register now at ellive.ellucian.com. Epic.

You've heard me talk about the Insights EDU Conference. Well, let me tell you three reasons why I think everyone listening should join us in Phoenix, Arizona on February 20 through 22 for Insights EDU. One, it's one of the few conferences focused on helping schools serve today's online and non-traditional students. Two, you can expect a mix of speakers you won't hear anywhere else, including higher ed leaders from Google, LinkedIn, Adobe, and more. And reason three, Insights EDU has an agenda packed with sessions discussing the latest trends in higher ed leadership marketing and enrollment management. Register now at insightsedu.com and use promo code EDUP to save fifty dollars off your registration. Yeah, love it Greg. I was waiting for a sound effect.

Gregory Clayton: No. It's hard. When somebody makes it here, here's one. That's a fact. That's a fact.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, that was good. So in terms of connecting, you mentioned the CBE model and everything that you use. In terms of connecting to what the students' objectives are, you mentioned, I think you said career enhancers as well?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Career amplifiers.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Career amplifiers. So that's interesting. That shows up in that ROI piece I was referring to and those studies that we've done with students and their upskilling, amplifying, some are changing careers and looking to help with that. How does that fit into the CBE model as you see it?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, you know, what really helps with that is with the CBE model, it's really about the marriage of theory and practical application, right? So when we're looking at how we're actually designing those courses is we make sure that we have faculty, right? Who are qualified. We call them scholar-practitioners because they are active in their disciplines. These aren't what you would think like, and I was taught by some of these a long time ago, faculty members who had never practiced. Right, they might have doctorates, but they have been in academia for their entire life. And so they knew all the theory, but they had never actually been out in the real world and applying that theory. 

But all of our faculty, over 80% of our faculty are doctorally prepared. They are actively practicing in their fields. And so they're able to bring their real world experience and say, so this is what the theory is, but let me tell you what sometimes can happen, right? In real life. And these are the kinds of things you need to do. And then what we ask is we ask our students, our learners, to apply the knowledge that they're getting in the classroom to an authentic assessment, which means that all of our assessments are based on real world scenarios. And so they have to demonstrate that application of it to something that could actually occur in the workplace.

The other way that we do that is through the third model of our work-integrated learning where we essentially, we either partner with organizations externally, they come and bring us problems, right? And then we have faculty and learners work together to solve their problems or we allow our learners to bring what they're learning and apply it to something they're doing at work and bring that in as a demonstration of mastery, right? To show their faculty member, like, here's what you taught me. Wow, I had this really interesting thing happen at work. I applied it and let me show you how I did it and how I've mastered this concept for you. So, and that's really well received when you're an adult learner. It really breaks down that barrier between learning and work.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: So, little known, you probably don't know this Constance, I work at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. I'm the chief experience officer here. And we recently at Lindenwood launched subscription-based undergraduate programs. And I said subscription-based because we're using the DOE subscription Title IV methodology. Boy, we sat down and we saw this and it's newer, right? It's a couple of years old and not a lot of institutions use that methodology. I'm like, who do we know that's doing anything with this? Because it's really confusing. We're like, let's call some institutions. We called up some institutions and our colleagues, and only one institution responded to our reach-outs to help us understand, and it was Capella University. And we had a lot of questions about how it's applied and how you do it with your FlexPath model and so on. And I thought, man, there are still beacons of hope in higher education where institutions do help each other. And your folks gave us a ton of information because there is this methodology and a flat rate subscription pricing that the Department of Ed uses and not a lot of people know it or use it. And implementing it, you know it and like it all day long, but actually applying it to a program and designing a program where it can be applied, was really confusing. So I just want to say thank you to you and your team.

And then lead into my question - if you want to respond to that you can but my question really is: Why did you decide to become the president? That was a left-hand turn. You're asking me - figure this goes together because you probably have a great team but - I only do left turns by the way, but you could respond to that. But what walked you into this role? Is it something you always dreamed of doing or did you just do this because it was a natural fit because you had a great team underneath you?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, I don't think anybody ever grows up, you know when they're in kindergarten and thinks I want to be a university president someday, right? I think when I was in kindergarten, I wanted to be a movie star. 

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Did you say you wanted to be an army attorney too?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, no, I didn't want - I didn't do that either. I didn't think about that option. Although maybe if I had seen JAG, remember that TV show years ago, maybe because they made it seem a lot more interesting than it is. But yeah, you know, I think one of the reasons why I wanted to is just really because I was so attached, I became so attached to the mission here at Capella. And that meant a lot to me. So most of our programs here, even though we have a strong foundation in business and technology, most of our programs are in the social and behavioral sciences and the nursing and the health sciences. And so we call them helping professions, right? 

And over the past six years, I've become very enmeshed in that work and seeing the impact on the disciplines and the fields, right, as a result of the pandemic. So whether it's mental health, whether it's, you know, nursing, for example, right, there are shortages all over the place in those key fields. And I think, you know, when Dick finally got to the point where he was like, I'm going to retire, you know, I really felt like I needed to carry on all the work that we had been doing. And you know, it's the constant commitment here of the team to academic quality and the rigor and making sure that we are really changing the lives of our learners who come to us. And it's not just their lives. We're talking about changing the trajectory of their future families' lives, right? Through education, that really spoke to me. And I wanted to make sure that I was able to help carry on that work here.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You were compelled, as well as you're compelled to step -

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Compelled. That's right.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's great. I haven't heard that one before. I'm going to use that, Joe, now. Even though I took a left turn, let me right turn it and close the circle. So to know that your team stepped up to help us, it is that mission, right? If you feel compelled to help students and you feel compelled to help others who help students, you step up to help others in higher ed who are helping students. And it was so great to bring that whole circle together and have you on, because I wanted to tell you that live on the podcast, to give kudos to your team for giving us some tips. But also, when you set the mission and the foundation to help, that doesn't mean when you want to, it means all the time.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, and I wish higher ed was more like that in general, I'll be honest. I really feel like at the end of the day, if you distill what is the common thing that every institution has in common, right? It's the students. Like if you take everything out at the end of the day, it's the students and it's about making sure that they're succeeding. And so if we could really rally around that throughout higher education and really work together, I think that we could solve a lot of the problems that currently exist.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Epic. We'll go to the judges later to see if my questions had any relevance to each other. But I really appreciate what you said, Greg. We're just going to kick it to you because obviously I'm way off.

Gregory Clayton: Yeah, I'm happy to pick up the ball on that one, Joe, and continue with the left turn. But kind of connected to that, I have two questions for you. One, I'm curious about what your management philosophy is and your style, what's it like to work for you and with you? And second, since you're new to the role as a university president, what advice would you give to other new college and university presidents that are out there?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Okay, so let's start with the advice. So my advice would be just to, you know, remain humble and just know that you don't know everything and make friends with other new college and university presidents. I think there's, I think it's really great to learn from each other. And so I've been, I've been doing that a lot, connecting with my peers who are also just stepping into their roles. 

I think in terms of my teams and my management style, I think my team, although you should ask them, I think that they would tell you, I try to take the philosophy of hire people smarter than me and get out of their way. And so really provide a level of autonomy. The people that work for me are incredibly gifted, incredibly dedicated to the mission. And I am here to support them, not to make their jobs harder, but to make their jobs easier. And so I just basically sit there behind them. I look at it like training wheels, right? Like I'm just there in case you need me, but you can go ahead and do what you want. So they have been absolutely phenomenal. Everybody who works here at the institution is, and so I'm very blessed and Dick was very blessed to have such a strong team.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: How long did it take for you to search? You know, so Dick decides to retire. You know, I was there. Was it a comprehensive search, was it succession planning? Can you talk to me about how that worked itself out?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, it was one of the things that we came down to where it was all succession planning. And when the board approved me, they said, this is how succession planning is supposed to work. So that was great. And it helps that Dick and I, he was the charm. He was always the charm, but he was also, he wasn't just my boss. He was also a great mentor, right? And a friend. And so over the years, the six years that I worked for him, he was developing me the entire time. And so I learned so much underneath him. And so I was really lucky to be able to have that experience.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's such an important point. We talk about it sometimes on the podcast, but probably not often enough, where if you have poor succession planning and you go outside, which a lot of institutions do, and you go to run a national search and you bring in somebody who's been a leader in other places and you sit that person down in a culture that's been driving forward in a particular direction, it can break things. It can really change a lot. It can change the director - boy, you see how I am today? I don't know what I meant to - It can - you could see enrollment declines for a while. That succession planning, especially if it's board-informed, which is the way it's supposed to go. You don't miss a beat, right? You don't take turnover and you have your great people leave because they're nervous about how it's going to be. How was your reception right from your eyes when it was announced and everybody went exactly what we need? Like, this makes total sense.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: I mean, I think everybody was like, yeah, like they just knew because Dick and I were always so aligned. I mean, we helped develop the strategy, right? We were implementing it. It was just always, we were always lockstep together the entire way. And so when he finally said, you know, I think I'm going to retire, it was just a natural thing. Everybody's like, yep, that was the right choice, right? We were moving in the right direction. She's going to carry on the mission. I'm not going to do a 180 and all the things we've done because I helped build the strategy and I agree with the direction that we're going. And we are seeing historic highs in terms of, you know, our student performance in the classroom, in terms of enrollment, all of that. It's all, everybody's just rowing in the same direction. And we didn't want to disrupt that to your point, Joe.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I'll pass it back to you, Greg. Well, I want to ask him more questions. Shout out to Dick, by the way, Dick, I hope you're well.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: It was always fabulous. He is fabulous and glowing. Joe, when you see him next time he is enjoying his well-deserved retirement.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, I was going to ask you - Did you say when Dick said, you know, I think I'm going to retire. Did you say hey Dick? You know what you should go travel man. Go to - or did you go? Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Let's talk about a timeline here. Did you get the - was there like a okay. Wait a second. Is this happening? Were you like, no, I'm ready. What was your - like a little combination of both depending on the day?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Right? Like, so some days I was like, okay, I'm ready for it. And the next day I was like, you can't leave. And so it was one of those things. So he and I had, you know, good laughs and I still, I still speak with him daily because like I mentioned, you know, we're also friends. And so he's a great sounding board as I'm navigating my early months of presidency.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Awesome. Greg, I love your management style and the way you describe that. Constance, I practice a similar style. My mother is my mentor. People ask me sometimes like, who was your business mentor or life mentor or whatever? And it's my mom. She tells it like it is. She, for better or worse, she is still my mentor and it's tough love, you know, always from her. One of the things she told me when I was way younger than I am now is, you know, if you're ever in a position to hire people, make sure they are smarter than you are. When you're much younger, that's like, huh? But you know, as I now, you know, at this stage, I know exactly what she was talking about. And I practice that. It's very easy for me to do, by the way, to hire smarter people. But it does, it pays huge dividends, especially with the style that you described of, you know, you hire the best people, really smart people, and you give them the support that they need and make sure they have the resources and you get out of the way kind of thing. And I'm curious, did you have a mentor that you learned from, that you developed that style or is this something you discovered on your own?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: I think it was a combination of a little - I've had two really fantastic bosses in my lifetime. One was when I was on active duty and he went on to be a general officer in the JAG Corps, but he taught me how to write and communicate effectively. And I can say that I owe everything today in terms of my writing ability to him. And then the other one I would say is Dick. And Dick was the one who gave me a lot of freedom, sometimes freedom to make mistakes, but also taught me about work-life balance. And I was no good to him if I burned myself out. And so the importance of, I don't want to hear from you on the weekends, you need to go have a life, right? You work hard Monday through Friday, if it's emergency, contact me, otherwise I don't want to hear from you. And that was very different than any experience I had ever had. And so I also try to infuse that into my teams here.

Gregory Clayton: One of the things coming back around to the website real fast as we start to get to the end of this podcast. You love our website, don't you, Joe? We both do. We were talking about it before you came on, by the way. Well, it was good. "Education defined by flexibility." It's a tagline sitting right up there. And I start to think about what that means. Education defined by flexibility versus education the way we've designed it and you have to figure out how to take it. I mean there's a stance there that you're taking. Can you just talk more about that and how it relates to the overall strategy of Capella University?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Yeah, I mean I think in higher ed in general and again this is a massive generalization but we always think as the educators that we know what's good for the students, right? And so I think that really is a key here is listening to what students need, listening to what employers are saying that they need from their employees, right? In the workplace and then building that kind of curriculum and that flexibility into it. So people can learn and consume information in a way that is manageable, especially as a working adult, right, especially as a working adult, because that's really tough going back to school and it requires a massive commitment. 

And, you know, we recently just partnered with Optum, which is an arm of the United Health Care Group to launch a nurse practitioner program. And we know, as I mentioned earlier, right, we know that like mental health professionals, nurses, right, are in massive shortage across the country. And so that partnership, we built our curriculum in partnership with Optum because they are experiencing a shortage to kind of address those needs. So we launched a program in October, a nurse practitioner in gerontology and most recently in family practice, which has been really well received and much needed. But those working nurses coming in who might only have a BSN and then want to go get their nurse practitioner degree now have that flexibility to be able to do that. They can continue on. We have a really robust undergraduate space of nurses. And so it's really continuing that entire pipeline to be able to give that experience to those people who want to continue to move forward in their careers.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Do you think that mental health, when we talk about online students, adult students, that it's understated? Because I think when I hear mental health and you're in higher ed, we typically go to the on-campus student or the younger student who's experiencing some anxiety from moving in or moving away from home, and all of a sudden, they're ending up in a... And I see that a lot at Lindenwood because we do have 3,000 or so, 4,000 general traditional students, and so we're seeing that. And I'll say things like, we do have a lot of online students too. How are we extending our services to the online student? We're just forgetting about, we just assume because you're an adult with two kids or you're at home and you're taking education, you don't have the same - Yeah, we're good. No, if anything, you're more stressed, right?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Like you're more stressed trying to manage all that. I mean, I think back to our adult learners who during the pandemic, when we were all in lockdown, when the whole world was in lockdown, right? Trying to like work their jobs at home, having children going to school, doing online learning, right? Maybe they had someone who was sick or they lost somebody as a result of COVID, right? And they're trying to manage all those stressors of just being responsible for everybody's collective survival and going to school at the same time, right? So I really think that in terms of the online space and the adult student, mental health is definitely under-reported and is not being tracked as much as it should be.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, I agree. All right, Greg, you get your last shot. Make it a good one here before I close out the episode.

Gregory Clayton: I think we should go back to the website one more time.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: OK. It's like a slam dunk.

Gregory Clayton: Yeah, that, you know, our research with adult learners, I think it was 87% in the last study, which is not really surprising when you think about it. 87% of prospective students interact with, you know, the schools that are in the consideration set website. When you think about that, big surprise and you think about, okay, well, what are they looking for when they go there? And it kind of goes back to those things that I was mentioning earlier. Can they easily find how much it costs and can they easily find if there's a flex path option or there's something that kind of meets that need around the flexibility and everything, time to completion and so forth. You may not know the answer to this, when your website was conceptualized, was that the thinking behind it? You start from student-centric and then kind of build it from there?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: I think everything that we do, every facet of our organization from the website all the way into our course rooms is really focused on user experience design learning. You have to design it from the outside in, in how the person's going to be interacting with it rather than, again, what we think, right, should be on there. And so I think that's what you're seeing is that user experience and the feedback that we have received in the design. So that's what makes it much more intuitive than some other sites.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, Constance, I'm pretty sure I could talk to you for a lot longer than your team has allotted me, but, you know, we'll have you back after a year or so when you go, God, it's been 10 years. When I have more gray hair, is that what you're going to say next time you see me? I'll be all gray.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: As much as me. It's blonde. I know it doesn't look it, but -

Dr. Joe Sallustio: We like to ask our guests two final questions to end every episode. One, it's not really a question, but it's an open mic moment. Here's an open mic for you to say anything you want about Capella University, anything you can think of about Capella University or your work there. Take a couple minutes, lay it on us.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: So I would say of all of the institutions I've had the privilege of working for, that Capella University is the best. And I'm not just saying that because I'm the president now. I would say that everybody who's involved with it is so ultimately committed to the mission. So whether you work in course development all the way to an enrollment counselor on the front line, they truly believe in the university's mission of being innovative, right? Really engaging with those career amplifiers, making sure that we're helping change the trajectory of, you know, students who are coming to the institution and their lives. And I think the fact that we have, I will just say this, over 11 accreditations from program accreditors, you know, really speaks volumes in terms of our academic quality and the gold standards. Everything that we do, academic excellence is the foundation underneath. If you're looking for an institution to attend, I would definitely encourage you to check out Capella.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: What do you see, Constance, as the future of higher education?

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Oh my God. I have to answer this in one minute. The future of higher education -

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You could take it. You could take as much time as you want. You're the guest. Do what you want.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: You know, what I think is so interesting about higher ed right now is for an institution that really considers itself to be so progressive, it's unbelievably conservative. And especially when it comes to changing. We know, everybody knows that higher ed needs to change, right? And how it's delivering, how it's teaching, how it's learning, just look at AI, right? And the impacts that it's having, all of that. And I think the future of innovation and educational technology is really going to result in some shifting paradigms when it comes to learning. If you're looking at Generation Alpha and even Generation Z who's coming up, they have much different expectations in terms of how they want to integrate learning into their lives, in terms of how they're interacting, you know, in the online space, everything else. And so I think that higher ed is going to have to figure out how they want to marry those two in order to maintain its relevancy going forward.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know, I say this - just so well said - all the time I bring this up on the podcast, you know, there's a reason why we skip the intro credits when we watch our favorite Netflix show, we skip - why we expect our Amazon packages to be delivered the same day or next day.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: All right, three clicks or less.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Exactly, we have these expectations now that are way, way higher in terms of speed and intensity in periods of time because time is so precious. And to your point, the word subscription is one that keeps coming up in higher ed now. Way easy to say, like change is a really easy word to say in higher ed. So much -

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Very hard to do.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yes, exactly. Absolutely. Well said. Well Greg, what do you think about this episode?

Gregory Clayton: I think it was great. I have to admit, I'm a rookie. This is my first time doing -

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Me too, Greg. And we survived.

Gregory Clayton: We survived Joe.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know. Where did it go? 50 minutes. Just remember, destiny arrives all the same. See, now you're all pros. You're all pros. Well, ladies and gentlemen, my guest co-host today, it's the first time you've heard him, but maybe not the last time you'll hear him, especially since I'm probably going to see him in person in the next couple of months. And I'll have a hot mic ready for him to sit down and join me. He is the one and only Greg Clayton. He's the president of Enrollment Management Solutions and Services at Education Dynamics. Greg, thanks for being on. It wasn't too bad, right? Your first time?

Gregory Clayton: It was great. You know, it was Constance that made this work. So I'm glad that I was co-hosting with this guest.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: Right. I am the thorn between the two roses. That's what it is.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, Constance, like I do for any college president who comes on this podcast, once your episode releases, you have an open invitation to join me as a guest co-host whenever you want.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: That'd be so fun.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, that'd be awesome. I'll send you a schedule and you get to pick from it and be part of the conversation interviewing somebody else from wherever across higher ed. We'll be in touch. I have to be honest, you're pretty good on a mic, pretty good on a microphone.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: No, it's because I had such great co-hosts. That's why the three of us together, right? We were like the peanut gallery. So it worked out great.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: We were. It was a little bit of a mess, but also very well done at the same time. But it was such a pleasure to have you on, Constance. I do encourage everyone, if you're thinking about change and you're thinking about innovation in higher ed, Capella is one of the places you can look to for how to do things. And I know that because I reached out, my team reached out recently and we got great tips from Constance and her team. Ladies and gentlemen, my guest, your guest today. Her name is Dr. Constance St. Germain. She is the president, the new president, but the longtime president soon to be at Capella University. Constance, we hope you had fun today in addition to talking about higher ed.

Dr. Constance St. Germain: I did. I enjoyed, I enjoyed the discussion. And all your sound effects.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And all your sound effects. Well, I got more. Come back. 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, you know what you have done. You've just EdUpped.